Lay Down Your Law Books, by ameretrifle
Oct. 5th, 2007 01:10 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ameretrifle.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficLay Down Your Law Books
Summary: AU, character deaths. Elizabeth had always followed the rules. Two voices call to you from where they stood / Lay down your law books now, they're no damn good...
Notes: Quote and title (and story) from the Eagles, "Doolin-Dalton". I hate trying to write short things... I always feel I should be doing more...
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She'd never been a radical feminist herself. A feminist, yes, and she had to admit she saw the logic of the seperatist arguments-- but she'd never been a radical.
"Still the good girl," Lisa had said. "Here's a news flash: being the good girl won't get you anywhere."
And here it was, stark and bleak: Lisa had been right. She'd done everything right. Followed all the rules. Been sensitive to every issue, smoothed every misunderstanding, bent over backward... And there wasn't any point to it, was there?
She watched Teyla's labored breathing, her restless sleep-- she had a cot to herself, even in this crowded infirmary; Elizabeth prayed she'd survive this. Someone had to. Surely someone had to.
She'd been warned; that was what was sticking like a knife in her heart. "I don't trust them," John had said. "This doesn't even make sense," Rodney had said.
"Cultural differences," she'd said. Because they needed all the allies they could get, and there was a feminist argument for you: networking would save the day. Let the sunshine in. But this was the Age of Pegasus, and she was only beginning to learn the rules of it.
The explosion had taken out half of the city. They'd taken out Rodney after he'd stormed out of the reception; she'd thought he was sulking, everyone had thought he was sulking. He hated ritual, he hated making nice; almost like he'd known that would be what would kill him in the end. A knife and a closet. Brutal and pointless. "Drive the infidels out of the sacred city," was all the man would say when they... "interrogated"... him. Maybe Rodney had known.
Sheppard, still suspicious, had found the one who was planting the bombs. In that terrible, familiar window of time between early enough to escape alive and too late to save anything at all. Almost half the city, more dead than she even wanted to think...
How do you live with this? she wanted to ask, but there was no one listening. There never had been.
"You need their help," Caldwell had said. "We need their help. Do it."
No one ever listened, except her.
This is where following the rules gets you, said Lisa. Follow your brain. Follow your heart. Live before you die. Will you come with me?
"The power is back up, for now," said Zelenka, beside her, voice hoarse. "The structural damage... Long story, we will not sink quite yet, but I do not think city will ever fly again. Everything is holding. Is there anything you want me to do?"
Knives and explosives and Wraith who killed without remorse and Genii who hated without reason and Replicators and Goa'uld and Ancients and the Haka'ii...
The city was dying, she knew it. All she wanted...
You and me up against the wall, baby--
All she wanted was to take a little bit of this death and hate down with her.
"Build me a bomb," she said. She knew all she had to do was ask.
"Dr. Weir?" Zelenka said, sounding uncertain-- but not, she thought, unsupporting. "Is this for revenge?"
Vigilante justice; descending to the level of street gangs; extortion and violence and cruelty. Nothing new to Pegasus. Bring it on.
"There's been a change in our mission objectives," she said. "We answer to the SGC if we feel like it. We destroy the Wraith. And we don't take this anymore."
Nothing could bring back the dead. But as long as you were alive, you had to do something. Justice, vengeance, keeping it from ever happening again-- call it what you would, there probably wasn't a difference anyway. As long as you were alive, you had a duty.
It was an obligation, today, that she was looking forward to being freed from.
-
Summary: AU, character deaths. Elizabeth had always followed the rules. Two voices call to you from where they stood / Lay down your law books now, they're no damn good...
Notes: Quote and title (and story) from the Eagles, "Doolin-Dalton". I hate trying to write short things... I always feel I should be doing more...
-
She'd never been a radical feminist herself. A feminist, yes, and she had to admit she saw the logic of the seperatist arguments-- but she'd never been a radical.
"Still the good girl," Lisa had said. "Here's a news flash: being the good girl won't get you anywhere."
And here it was, stark and bleak: Lisa had been right. She'd done everything right. Followed all the rules. Been sensitive to every issue, smoothed every misunderstanding, bent over backward... And there wasn't any point to it, was there?
She watched Teyla's labored breathing, her restless sleep-- she had a cot to herself, even in this crowded infirmary; Elizabeth prayed she'd survive this. Someone had to. Surely someone had to.
She'd been warned; that was what was sticking like a knife in her heart. "I don't trust them," John had said. "This doesn't even make sense," Rodney had said.
"Cultural differences," she'd said. Because they needed all the allies they could get, and there was a feminist argument for you: networking would save the day. Let the sunshine in. But this was the Age of Pegasus, and she was only beginning to learn the rules of it.
The explosion had taken out half of the city. They'd taken out Rodney after he'd stormed out of the reception; she'd thought he was sulking, everyone had thought he was sulking. He hated ritual, he hated making nice; almost like he'd known that would be what would kill him in the end. A knife and a closet. Brutal and pointless. "Drive the infidels out of the sacred city," was all the man would say when they... "interrogated"... him. Maybe Rodney had known.
Sheppard, still suspicious, had found the one who was planting the bombs. In that terrible, familiar window of time between early enough to escape alive and too late to save anything at all. Almost half the city, more dead than she even wanted to think...
How do you live with this? she wanted to ask, but there was no one listening. There never had been.
"You need their help," Caldwell had said. "We need their help. Do it."
No one ever listened, except her.
This is where following the rules gets you, said Lisa. Follow your brain. Follow your heart. Live before you die. Will you come with me?
"The power is back up, for now," said Zelenka, beside her, voice hoarse. "The structural damage... Long story, we will not sink quite yet, but I do not think city will ever fly again. Everything is holding. Is there anything you want me to do?"
Knives and explosives and Wraith who killed without remorse and Genii who hated without reason and Replicators and Goa'uld and Ancients and the Haka'ii...
The city was dying, she knew it. All she wanted...
You and me up against the wall, baby--
All she wanted was to take a little bit of this death and hate down with her.
"Build me a bomb," she said. She knew all she had to do was ask.
"Dr. Weir?" Zelenka said, sounding uncertain-- but not, she thought, unsupporting. "Is this for revenge?"
Vigilante justice; descending to the level of street gangs; extortion and violence and cruelty. Nothing new to Pegasus. Bring it on.
"There's been a change in our mission objectives," she said. "We answer to the SGC if we feel like it. We destroy the Wraith. And we don't take this anymore."
Nothing could bring back the dead. But as long as you were alive, you had to do something. Justice, vengeance, keeping it from ever happening again-- call it what you would, there probably wasn't a difference anyway. As long as you were alive, you had a duty.
It was an obligation, today, that she was looking forward to being freed from.
-